You should have heard the original plan:joy:
Misread the points banding from Thursday. Still on 11 points so gutted I didn’t even give the second race a go😢
Aw man… You’ll get that no bother!
To other TR forumites: Andy attacked from the gun today and rode the 40 minute crit solo. I tried to pull him back, along with 2 or 3 other riders, but everytime we got close to organising some kind of chase one of Andys teammates would pop up in the line or come around us and slow the whole thing down again.
Beast performance from Andy to ride that strong, and great team effort to screw with the chase. Kudos!
There never used to be tactics in Scottish 4th cat racing what is happening?
I want to race this.
Cool Video, is that a chest mount Go Pro? What model? I was maybe going to get one.
Thanks, it’s a Hero 7 on a GoPro chesty mount. Rear is a Hero 6.
The other week I posted about my first win in Cat 2 MTB and last week I was able to pick up my second in our XC season finale. Muddy race up in Flagstaff, AZ. 1st in the race, finished 3rd overall in our series and onto Cat 1 next year. Lots of work to do to make sure I’m not just bringing up the rear in 2020.
This one ended up being a come-from-behind victory for me.
After the main climb on the course I faced a ~60 second deficit to the rider in first that’d I’d pull back to about ~15 second after the following downhill & rolling terrain. Happened after the first and second lap. Going into the last, shortened lap I still needed to make up a 25 second gap that I ended up closing with 1.5 miles left. The rider in first slowed down to a crazy slow pace when we reached the last fire road climb hoping I’d take up the pacing so I attacked as hard as I could for 15 seconds. Opened things up by the end to 25 seconds for the win! No power meter on the bike but Kurt Kinetic inRide puts me at 269W and ~3.8 w/kg.
Thanks, that is a cool course. It looks like you had great weather.
Thanks Nico!!
Team talk was short!!..
- Don’t take anybody down with a crazy divebomb late breaking move.
- If we have a man up the road, don’t contribute to any chase.
- Keep attacking until we get someone away.
The lads rode a superb race. There’s no way I would have stayed away if there was an organised chase!
100km handicap this weekend just gone. The handicap seems to be an Australian race and from what I’m told other countries rarely hold these races. For those that don’t know all grades A to E (cat1 to cat4/5 if you’re not from Aus) race together. The idea is that all riders have an equal chance of winning the race. Riders get sorted in to bunches based on ability and previous race results a few days before the race. Limit (the slowest riders) take off first and the scratch bunch (fastest riders) take off last. There are intermediate bunches between these also. So you have bunches of riders take off anywhere from 5 to 10mins apart working together with the common goal of not being caught OR catching the bunches ahead. Closer to the end of the race it is every man or lady (yes both genders race together!) for themselves.
I was in the fastest bunch and we took off 40minutes behind the slowest bunch, everyone worked well and along the way we were catching bunches in front. In the last 10km we had caught all but the slowest bunch and at this point riders started skipping turns and putting in some attacks. I waited until about 3-4km out and put in a big attack getting away and soloing to and straight past the slowest bunch. 2 others managed to get across also but were unwilling to work. Having a terrible sprint I just pulled them along as I figured I’d still have a better chance to win this way. One guy kind of got in front of me coming in to the final finishing climb and I was boxed in for the sprint, managed to freewheel for a second and get around but it was too late and I settled for second.
Handicap racing, some of the funnest racing out there.
I raced for realz this weekend, last race as a Cat 5 in fact (only took 5 years to get there, since I’ve raced so infrequently). Race was 30 miles, with a 10 mile loop, the main feature being a ~8min climb. I was comfortable throughout the race, hanging with the pack. In the first lap, I was somehow in front up (I wasn’t going at a crazy pace, didn’t want to so early). Unfortunately, I probably should have done something over the top, as a couple of guys took off together and pretty much stayed away and another guy bridged up to them during the 2nd lap. I just race so conservatively that I don’t even think about following moves or creating any, mainly because I assume cat 5’s will just try and follow anything and don’t want to be the one to do the work. Alas, that wasn’t the case here.
As for me, on the last lap I didn’t match the pace of the main group over the top of the climb and finished in the top half, with the power I had at the finishing sprint (18 sec, which was only 1 sec slower than the cat 1 winner) maybe I could have done much better had I dug in a little harder and stuck with the group on the end of the climb. But not surprising given I’ve only been doing sweet spot the past 5 weeks, I’m kind of capped at 4w/kg which is my sweet spot right now. Also, I was feeling so good I didn’t eat or drink during the race, usually I’m good for 90min but maybe I could have topped off on stuff during the 2nd lap.
Anyhow, it was a super nice day and it was fun to ride with real people. While I’d love to be better with road racing, I’m sacrificing road fitness to try and be ready for CX where I think I can be way better, but still the competitive part of me always wishes to be better regardless. Oh, and I raced for 1h23 and avg 212w/NP 256 3.6w/kg (0.83 IF)
Nice man, I was there racing with you in the 5’s. I also probably raced a bit too conservatively and was at the back of the pack for most the race. Mostly due to my dislike of descending while in the middle of the pack.
On the final climb up Oak Hill I decided to try and make a move and dug deep to get up to the front, where myself and 3 other guys broke off from the pack. I was too far back initially to see how many got away in the breakaway so I had no idea how many riders were ahead of us. I pretty much gave it my all for the last 2-3 miles and down the final descent to the finish and hoped for the best. Ended up barely out-sprinting a few riders and just missed the podium. All in all, I thought it was a great race and we really lucked out with the weather. Congrats on getting out of the 5’s!
awesome work! I was actually quite good at that final stretch, on the first 2 laps I picked up a bunch of spots (I seemed to be both descending faster than a lot of people and have the power to muscle past people when it kicks up), so I’m kicking myself for not jumping on the move up Oak Hill the final time because maybe I could have picked some people off at the line. I also wanted to average over 300 (ideally threshold at 310w) and get under 8mins on Oak Hill and didn’t, so I kind of wish I had been watching my power a little more since I could have paced myself better and either dropped some people early on or kept with the late surge. I could hear more than one person huffing and puffing up Oak Hill while I’m in pretty comfortable sweet spot, so at least that made me feel good about my fitness! lol
Did my first Olympic Triathlon on Sunday, with limited training did a Pb of 33:59 on the swim, followed by a 1:13:16 for the 40k bike, sweeping up 80 places in the process. Unfortunately it all went downhill with a knee issue on the run, but a full length base build speciality has clearly worked its magic.
One easy week before the race and it felt as though I was just slipping though the air, I only got passed by one person.
Nice one Trainerroad!
B-race yesterday (63 mile rr). Bridged to a two man break and worked to keep it away. About to get caught by another group in the last km. I blinked first and lead out the sprint which had me finish third. Was really regretting not tapering for this race after the first hour in the break - legs were hurting more than they should
Got two bouts of flu in February and an allergy-induced sinus infection which wrecked my spring.
On April 1, I weighed 170 and FTP was down from 350 to 315.
I went on the "ride a lot, eat a little program for 8 weeks. Just endurance every day, with two Sweet Spot days/week. Last six weeks were 300mi+/wk.
72 kg and 340 FTP now – got 3rd in the combined 50+ 1-4, 40+ 3/4 at Roan Groan (7.5 mi, 6% mountain finish).
Second XCO race of the season and another WIN 
! Started with a bit of a punch and within the first 15 seconds nobody came with me. Apparently they were fine with letting me go 
. After about 1 minute the “chasing” pack was out of sight never to be seen again. I ended up racing practically the entire time (1:35:42) with nobody in my age group (40-44, Cat 2/Sport) with 2nd place coming in 8:32 back. I finished 6th overall in Cat 2/Sport being 1:01 behind the category leader. I was completely unmotivated to push it since nobody was contesting the win and I have another race this weekend.
UPDATED WITH RACE VIDEO
Second A race of the season was this weekend and thankfully this one wasn’t disrupted by a collapsed lung like the first one. Three event stage race (RR Saturday, TT and crit Sunday) racing the P123 field
Made the decisive break on Saturday and came home in 6th
A little worn down for the TT this morning, but due to the time gaps at the finish held onto 6th in the GC despite only placing 12th in the TT
Crit was just a matter of hanging in there to get the pack finish and maintain my spot - finished 16th in the crit and held on to 6th in the GC
